


There's a Magic in You

by mytimehaspassed



Category: iCarly
Genre: M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stewart meets Oliver in a photography workshop class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a Magic in You

**THERE'S A MAGIC IN YOU**  
ICARLY  
Stewart Butler/Oliver Paisley  
 **WARNINGS** : spoilers for "iMove Out"

  
Stewart meets Oliver in a photography workshop class. They both bring in pictures of cats and dogs and rabbits and frogs. They both think all the other students create pedantic, menial work, and Stewart talks in class about how the light catching a Scottish Fold’s whiskers is so much more interesting than the shadow play of the Grand Canyon or something silly like that, and Oliver will agree, smiling like a comma with only one side of his mouth, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

Stewart likes cameras and Persians and blue-striped button down sweaters.

Oliver likes cameras and Persians and shiny black dress shoes that squeak when he puts them on.

They fall in love the first day they meet.

***

When Stewart moves out of his parent’s house because of their incessant fighting and the way it distracts him from taking pictures (“Great pictures! Photographs, even,” he shouts at them through his wall, but there’s only a crash of a dish and a slam of a door in lieu of any response, and he will press the heel of his hand to his eyes, but only because there’s something in them and not because he’s going to cry or anything), he moves in with Oliver. Oliver has an apartment on the east side of Seattle where it rains even more than the west side, where the light bulbs burn out more quickly, where the streetlamps are never lit, where men with leather jackets are constantly chain-smoking outside of brick buildings and blowing warm air into their fingerless gloved hands.

Oliver’s apartment is neat and small. The stove doesn’t work and the tub leaks like a sieve and the bed is missing a frame, but Oliver loves it nonetheless. It’s his and it’s away from his family, who kicked him out only a year prior for graduating with a degree in photography instead of medicine like he promised them. It takes Oliver twenty-three seconds to show Stewart around, pivoting in a semi-circle with his heels together, and only fifteen seconds for Stewart to move in.

Stewart’s worldly possessions include: a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, five dog-eared books on professional photography, a baby blue laptop, and a Persian cat calendar.

Oliver points to the wall above his mattress and says, “You can hang your calendar here.”

And Stewart smiles sheepishly and says thank you and hangs it up with a piece of tape that Oliver gives him.

***

Between them, they make four hundred dollars a week. It’s enough to pay the rent and buy two week’s worth of groceries and maybe pick up some takeout if they feel generous or if they’re having a good day. Oliver works at the local used bookstore, where he shelves books and stacks books and flips through books and runs his thumb along the spines as if he could mend their cracks. Stewart works as an administrative assistant to a family photographer, answering the phones and booking weddings and bar mitzvahs and christenings and running out of the office to pick up lunch or someone’s dry cleaning or whatever needs to be picked up.

Stewart’s boss hired him because he, Stewart, had a pretty face and because he, Stewart’s boss, had a habit of running his warm hand along Stewart’s shoulders or brushing an imaginary eyelash off Stewart’s cheek or making him stay longer than usual just so he could see the way Stewart’s eyes start to droop when he gets tired.

Oliver hates Stewart’s boss, but he never tells Stewart this, sitting in the apartment with a glass of wine he splurged his lunch money on, ignoring the hunger pangs in his belly and checking his phone for Stewart’s text messages about coming home. Oliver will wait up until he can’t wait up anymore, getting in his bed and turning out the light and falling asleep, only to be woken up at three or four to Stewart sliding under the sheets, his body warm like a furnace.

Oliver won’t say anything and Stewart will breathe a sigh of contentment before he falls asleep, and Oliver will turn over to watch his serene face, to trace the curve of his lips until the sun peaks out behind the shades and it’s time for Oliver to go to work.

And in the morning, Stewart will blink awake to the sun shining between the blinds and the sheets will be rumpled on Oliver’s side and Stewart will feel like something inside of him is missing, like he has slept through something meaningful, even if it’s only something as ordinary and mundane as Oliver’s morning rituals (squeezing the toothpaste tube from the bottom, combing his hair with neat little strokes, putting his socks on before his pants).

Even if it’s only something as ordinary and mundane as Oliver, his crooked smile and the way he smells after a shower, like lavender and honeysuckle and the dark space between the sheets and comforter after it’s been folded clean on their bed.

***

They share the bed, but they never touch, and maybe this is because they both love each other so fiercely they don’t want to spoil it, or because they love each other and don’t want the other to know, or because they love each other and don’t know what that means, what those feelings are exactly, the flutter in their bellies when they look at each other, the shine in their eyes, the way they smile and smile and can‘t stop smiling.

Oliver will look at Stewart in the same way he looks at a good photograph, and Stewart will laugh at every one of Oliver’s jokes, and they both will dance around each other, a hand on the back of a neck here, and a brush of thighs soft together there, and they won’t mention this thing between them, but maybe it’s only because it’s something so special that they’ll never be able to name it.

Maybe because it’s something so fragile, even putting words to it will make it disappear.

***

Stewart quits his job on a Tuesday.

There’s something rewarding about the abject look of disappointment on Stewart’s boss’ face, the look of rejection as he, Stewart’s boss, begs Stewart to reconsider, promising an advancement of his career, a step up to back-up photographer, even, with his own set of cameras, with his own time in the studio, even if it would only be on Thursday afternoons from three to five. Stewart’s boss with his wedding ring tan line and drunken fumbling hands and the flask he keeps in his desk drawer on the nights he would rather stay at work and watch Stewart send emails and photocopy than go home to his wife. Stewart’s boss with his thinning hair and crinkling crow’s feet and the sad, forlorn way he hates his job.

Stewart’s boss dreamed of becoming a photographer, too. A real photographer. Like Stewart does, like Stewart wants to be.

Stewart quits his job on a Tuesday and spends the rest of the day in bed, hidden beneath the covers in some sort of glum regret. Oliver cooks breakfast for dinner and watches TV with the volume loud, watches all of Stewart’s favorite shows, but still Stewart doesn’t come out, doesn’t move, exhausted and vulnerable and weak. Still, Stewart stays in bed, tucking his face in the space between their pillows, the smell of Oliver and the smell of Stewart strong and good and comforting and exactly what he needs.

When Oliver slips between the sheets that night, he asks Stewart to tell him why he quit, why he’s so upset, and Stewart turns away and speaks in a voice that’s almost a whisper, buried by the weight of his pillow.

“I don’t know,” he says, his body curled like comma. “I feel like there’s something I need to be doing. I feel like there’s something I need to work out.”

“Like what?” Oliver asks, his palm hovering above Stewart’s shoulder, radiating warmth (radiating something he wants but can’t have, something like love), but not touching.

“I don’t know,” Stewart says, but in his heart, he does know. In his heart, he knows exactly who he wants to be and how he wants to get there and who he wants to be with.

***

Oliver buys Harmu on a Wednesday.

“For your existential crisis,” he says, and Stewart runs a palm along the Persian’s back the same way Oliver runs his hands along old, worn book covers, soft and hesitant and with utter adoration. Harmu is white and beautiful, purring quietly in Oliver’s hands, in Stewart’s hands, and looking up at both of them with a curious innocence.

Stewart smiles so bright his cheeks start to ache, his pink mouth and his white teeth, and he tries to say thank you, but ends up saying “I love you” instead. And then he leans over to kiss Oliver.

Oliver smiles bright and tries to say you’re welcome, but ends up kissing back.


End file.
